Om Birla Pips K Suresh To Win Rare Lok Sabha Speaker Election

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Om Birla has been elected as Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha by voice vote on Wednesday. This is his second term in the office.

"The 17th Lok Sabha had entered a golden age of politics under your supervision. We, as a party, are lucky to have you as the Speaker of the House again," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his congratulatory address in the Parliament.

Birla was contending against Indian National Congress' K Suresh, who had filed an 11th hour nomination for the post on Tuesday. This marked one of the rare moments in the history of the Indian Parliament, where the position of Speaker of the Lok Sabha was up for a formal vote.

The post of Speaker is usually filled by consensus of the central government and the opposition. The opposition, which had been in talks to ensure the availability of the post of Deputy Speaker, had chosen to file an official nomination for the post of Speaker when discussions failed.

The seat of the Speaker of the lower house has gone for vote thrice in the history of independent India. In 1952, GV Malvankar of the Congress party had gone up against Shankar Shantaram More of the Peasants and Workers Party of India, to be elected as Speaker with 394 votes.

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy of the Congress had won the post 278 votes in 1967, after an election against Tenneti Viswanatham, an independent member of parliament.

BR Bhagat, a Congress MP, was elected as the Speaker in an election in 1976 with 344 votes against Jana Sangh's Jagannathrao Joshi.

Birla was unanimously chosen as Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha in 2019, when the BJP had secured a majority in the lower house with 303 seats. However, the 18th Lok Sabha saw the party gain only 240 seats, and the National Democratic Alliance gain a 293-seat majority, with the support of Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar.